


A Witcher's Life

by stele3



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Awkward Dad Geralt, Ciri Needs a Hug, F/F, Gen, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Feelings, Jaskier | Dandelion is Good at Hugs, M/M, Pining, Polyamory, Yennefer is Ciri's Mom, Yennefer is also Bad at Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 07:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: A collection of stories from my mental Witcher universe.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 26
Kudos: 555





	1. Hagga

They stop in Hagga, a small town along the river. Geralt could have gone another fifty miles at least before sunup, but on the third time he turned to catch Ciri just as she started to sway off the saddle, he decided they needed to rest.

They’ve traveled mostly in silence, punctuated by occasional, hesitant questions from Ciri. _Do you like being a Witcher? Why did you save my father’s life? The things I do frighten me, do you think I’m a mutant of some kind, too? If I was promised to you, why did you not come to claim me sooner?_ She does not ask them frequently, thank the gods, but they nearly take Geralt’s feet out from under him each time. It’s been sixteen months and a fortnight since he parted from Jaskier, and Jaskier was less...incisive with his queries for information. Mostly he wanted to know what Geralt had done; Ciri seems to want to know how he feels, and that is...much more difficult to answer.

He’s almost grateful to walk out of the drizzle into a warm tavern, until he hears singing.

It’s Jaskier. Of course it is. Something destiny something something. Fuck. 

He hasn’t seen Geralt yet. He’s in the middle of that one song about daisies that’s a thinly-veiled metaphor for a woman’s nipples, or maybe a man’s nipples. Geralt’s heard it a hundred times but has never figured out which one of the fictional couple the singer wants to fuck.

“Geralt?” Ciri’s voice is hesitant.

Tearing his gaze away from Jaskier, Geralt takes Ciri by the arm and moves them to a table far from the fireplace. The innkeeper brings them plates of potatoes and some kind of meat that makes Ciri wrinkle her nose.

Of course they can’t escape notice. On the fifth—or sixth? Seventh?—time that Geralt glances over, Jaskier is looking at him. Their eyes lock. Goosebumps race down Geralt’s back. _Here we are_ , he thinks inanely.

Jaskier turns away then seems to catch himself, squares his narrow shoulders, and turns back. He marches over towards Geralt with his face set in stone. 

The edifice holds until he is three paces away, at which point Ciri has noticed Geralt’s fixed attention and spins around in her seat to look behind her. Jaskier sees her and promptly trips, tumbles into a somersault that goes too far, lands on his front, and springs back to his feet at the end of their table.

“Your Maj— _aaaaaaa_ —” His eyes dart sideways to Geralt. Geralt lets his eyes speak for him. “—aaaorie? Marjorie? By the gods, you’ve grown so big, I barely recognized you.”

He sits at the end of the bench next to Geralt then jumps back up and sits next to Ciri, who is studying his face intently.

“I remember you,” she says. “You sang in my grandmother’s...village.”

“I did! I heard that Nilfgaard razed your grandmother’s village to the ground. Did anyone else survive?” 

Geralt rolls his eyes. Sixteen months and a fortnight haven’t made Jaskier more tactful. Ciri presses her lips together and shakes her head.

Jaskier winces, visibly and very belatedly realizing his mistake. “I am so terribly sorry.”

“War has taken much,” Geralt says in a very particular tone of voice that asks for discretion. “We make for the eastern roads out of this land.”

“Oh, not for Kaer Morhen?” Jaskier inquires in a very particular tone and volume of voice that defies discretion. They have played this game many times to throw off bandits, other hunters, or someone who hated the sight of a Witcher more than they hated whatever preyed on the children of their village. “I would have thought you meant to make your Child of Surprise into a Witcher, too.”

“No. We want to get as far from the war as possible.”

They continue that way a while longer yet, weaving a believable story about their journey into the eastern lands. Jaskier argues passionately against it, insisting that Nilfgaard will tire of conquest soon enough and will make treaty with the northernmost lands, and surely Kaer Morhen will escape their notice; Geralt emphasizes Kaer Morhen’s weakness and the savagery of Nilfgaard’s advance. Ciri, surprisingly, joins in, telling Jaskier a chilling story about finding the body of the Witcher Kolgrim abandoned in a crypt, and the letter requesting help that he’d sent north that went unanswered. Kolgrim’s death was true, they encountered his body in a place of power on the road here, but there was no such letter; still, she speaks with such trembling conviction that Geralt would wager that no one present doubts their story of a flight into the east.

Once Ciri has sopped up the remains of her plate with bread scraps—she got past her reluctance quickly in the face of simple hunger—Jaskier claps his hands once. “Innkeeper! A room for this man and his poor, orphaned ward. I’ll pay for them, we cannot be stingy towards our countrymen in such dark times!”  
Geralt can’t exactly protest after he spent the last ten minutes pretending to be penniless and desperate. He allows Jaskier to purchase a room then follows him up a narrow staircase to the second floor of the inn. 

“Here we are.” Jaskier opens the first door on the right with a flourish. “Marjorie, I’m sure it’s far less comfortable or familiar than your grandmother’s house, but I do hope you—”

Ciri cuts him off by taking his hand. “Thank you,” she says softly. 

Jaskier appears stricken and says nothing else until she’s passed by him into the room. “Yes. Well. I’m—over here.” He gestures at a door on the left side of the hall as he backs toward it. “Do let me know if you—good night.”

He unlocks the door in a rush and practically slams it closed behind him. For a moment Geralt stands in the hall staring after him, before he can collect himself enough to step into his room after Ciri.

She’s by the bed, staring at Geralt. How strange and awful this all must be for her: to lose her only known family and wind up in the custody of a grown man she does not know other than a handful of visions. Jaskier, at least, is passing familiar. Geralt would go get him now would that not be another retreat, another attempted escape from the duty that he has shirked for years. 

The duty that he had no idea how to fulfill. For years he has imagined a boy: he’s only ever known boys, the other Witcher trainees who died one by one around him, convulsing in their beds or vomiting blood as the experiments killed them. A boy would have been difficult enough, but a girl? The fuck is he supposed to do with a girl?

They stand in silence, looking at one another, the room, the single bed, the window. It faces the forest, Geralt notes.

He peels the swords off his shoulders. No fire has been lit in the brazier and he crosses to it, stirring the coals and using Igni to spark a flame amongst them. “You’ll take the bed,” he says over his shoulder. “I will sleep here.”

Behind him there is silence until silence gives way to the shuffle of boots being removed from feet and a cloak pulled from its place on her shoulders. With the brazier glowing with heat, Geralt shucks his armor as well, careful to leave it in a stack beside his swords. 

When he stands, Ciri is still next to the bed wearing her dress. “Shall I,” he says, gesturing to the door. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off her, but she’s almost a young woman and certainly more than a child. His child, though he’s a stranger to her.

She doesn’t answer and after a beat Geralt crosses to the door and steps through it back into the hall. 

He stands there, looking at nothing and doing his best to hear nothing. It doesn’t work. His feet move as if ennerved by a foreign mind, taking him down the hall and to the left.

The choice to knock, however, is very much his own.

“Who is it?” 

“Open the door.”

Jaskier takes long enough to respond that Geralt starts to beat a rough tattoo on the door, whereupon it’s flung open. “What, what?” Jaskier demands. “What could you possibly want?”

In lieu of reply Geralt nudges him into the room. It’s larger than theirs and his window overlooks the stables. Were he someone else, Geralt would try to intimidate him into switching rooms. He must have bathed earlier: the inn’s empty tub sits in the corner and the whole room smells like those bath salts that Jaskier favors. His lute sits on the foot of the bed. Absurdly, Geralt feels the impulse to greet it, too.

He turns to face Jaskier. “I need to know you’re not going to tell anyone about her.”

It might be his own wishful thinking but Jaskier’s expression falls just the tiniest amount. “Of course I’m not. How could you even think that.” Geralt tilts his head. Jaskier scowls and points a finger at him. “Oh no, nonono, when was the last time you heard a ballad about the Princess of Surprise, hm?” He actually waits for a reply that Geralt refuses to grant him. “Never! That’s right, because I can, in fact, keep my mouth shut. I am amazed that the Queen managed to seal the mouths of everyone else in attendance that night.”

“Several lords turned up dead in the weeks after the banquet. The rest got the message.”

“Ah. Were you the one collecting heads?”

“No.” He’d been seized by an impulse to get as far from Cintra as possible, which he had not examined too closely.

“Well, you may rest assured that your secrets remain safe, as do hers. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a long day and could do with some rest.”

He opens the door pointedly. Geralt uses Aard to slam it shut. “Have you heard anything about the war? Yennefer was at Sodden with the Sorceress Lodge, but she disappeared after the battle.”

“Melitele’s tits, Geralt, are you still stuck on that woman?” Jaskier tugs futilely at the door a few times then spins away and marches over to the table on the far side of the bed. A jug and cheap goblet sit there; Jaskier forgoes the goblet and swigs directly from the jug. “It’s getting rather pathetic, you know, trailing after someone like that. Like a dog begging for scraps.”

Geralt grits his teeth. “I need her help. Ciri has...inherited her mother’s gift, but she has even less idea how to use it. She needs a teacher, one more experienced with magic than I am.”

“Aha.” Jaskier rubs at his forehead. “I haven’t heard any news of her. If I do, I’ll be sure to pass along the message.”

He takes another swig. He’s wearing a new maroon doublet, one that’s far darker than his usual attire. It makes his skin look pale. His hair’s grown out a bit, too—it looks more like when they first met, curling boyishly around his ears.

“If that’s all—”

“I missed you,” Geralt says over him. 

Jaskier laughs. It’s like getting stabbed. “Oh. Good. What, pray tell, did you miss, hm?”

He marches back over and stands nearly toe-to-toe with Geralt, his arms crossed and a vindictive gleam in his eye. 

“Come now, Geralt, let’s hear it. Tell me, in list form, what you missed and why your opinion has suddenly changed on the subject.”

“It hasn’t.”

“Really? Because the last time we met you made it very clear how very little you would miss me if I were gone, so I have done my very best to oblige you! I’ve dodged you on the road, I’ve avoided all our old haunts...do you have any idea, by the way, how difficult it is to separate your life from someone who you’ve known for twenty-two years? It’s a fucking nightmare, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t. I was trying to do the same.”

“And how did that go?”

“It was a lot quieter. There was...a certain rhythm to the life of a witcher, one that you thoroughly disrupted. I found myself returning to it easily enough, save for...a few differences.”

Jaskier’s shoulders have drawn in tight, until he’s hugging himself. “For the record, this is a shit apology.”

“It’s not.”

“Not what?”

“An apology.”

“Oh, I see! I see. How silly of me, here I thought you were going to say you hadn’t meant it when you said—all that. Well, I’ll just be going then.”

He crosses to the door. It feels as though an invisible thread pulls Geralt after him, and when Jaskier reaches for the door Geralt catches his hand.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m taking myself back out of your life, like you wanted.” Jaskier twists sideways to get another hand on the door.

Geralt grabs his other hand. Somehow Jaskier has managed to twist his first hand free again and there’s a moment of struggle that Geralt ends by grabbing his jaw and pressing their mouths together. Jaskier tastes like beer. He’s stopped struggling to get away but he isn’t kissing back. His whole body feels rigid against Geralt’s. 

Downstairs, something explodes.

The floor actually bends upward slightly with the explosion’s force. Tearing his mouth away from Jaskier’s, Geralt spins and casts Aard on the window, which shatters outward. Jaskier quickly follows, screaming, as Geralt scoops him up and pitches him through the hole feet-first.

Across the hall, Ciri screams. “Geralt!”

She should not have cried out: they heard her. Boots thunder on the stairs and Geralt quickly throws Jaskier’s lute and travel pack after him, along with a prayer that they don’t land directly on the bard’s head.

Unarmed, he steps into the hall. Men in the black garb of Nilfgaard are coming up the stairs; they cry out and raise their weapons, only to bash their elbows into the walls as their swords prove longer than the space allows. Another Aard flings the first man back and down to land on his compatriots.

Ciri stands in the doorway of their room, her mouth and eyes gaping open. Either she’s still dressed or she got dressed quickly, for she’s even got her cloak half-tied at her throat. He crosses to her and pulls the door closed behind him. “There’s a rope ladder in one of my bags. Get it, quickly.”

She obeys. He pulls on his armor and slings both swords onto his back. Downstairs something has caught fire and in the barn some horses have started to scream. None sound like Roach. The men in the stairway flail about in their heavy armor like overturned turtles but they will right themselves soon enough. Geralt uses Quen on the doorway to seal it shut.

Ciri has opened the window and tied one end of the rope ladder to the leg of the bed. “It won’t hold your weight, but I couldn’t find anything else! What will—?”

Crossing to the window, Geralt swings his legs through and drops two stories to the ground. He lands on one hand and knee in the soft grass behind the inn, then stands, turning back. “I frayed the rope. If they use it to follow, it will break and they will fall. Jump.”

Ciri crouches in the window. She looks so small. He can hear her heart beating fast like a rabbit’s. He can also hear men striking the door to their room behind her.

Shrugging his swords to the ground, Geralt spreads his arms. “Jump. I will catch you.”

She jumps. He catches her easily. It’s only the second time he’s held her in his arms. He wonders what it felt like when she was young, if she might have fallen asleep on his shoulder while he tromped through a swamp full of necrophages.

He guides Ciri around the corner of the inn to the stables. They’re on fire, too, and the horses have bolted—save for two, whose bridles are gripped tight by Jaskier. A gray Friesian throws its head and tugs at its bridle, but Jaskier chose well; it’s a large beast, built for speed. 

Jaskier’s eyes are almost as wild as the horse’s. He has hay in his hair from landing in the stack below his window. “I couldn’t find a saddle!”

“Doesn’t matter! Get on Roach!”

Once he is mounted Geralt takes Ciri by the waist and hoists her onto Roach in front of Jaskier, before mounting the Friesian himself. Both horses need no further encouragement to gallop away from the screams and flames that consume the inn and light the night sky in orange.

-o-

“You broke two strings on my lute.”

Stirring, Geralt lifts his eyes from the fire for what must be the first time in hours. They’ve made camp on the far side of the river, far enough from Hagga that its orange glow has faded from the sky. Fording the river in the dark took the last of Ciri’s strength; truly, they might not have made it at all save for Jaskier, who’d jested and made light of the cold water and the drowners lurking on the downriver banks. He’d also slept the previous night in a warm bed instead of the ground, and not spent the entire previous week fleeing from the edge of an army.

They’d barely made a fire and laid out bedrolls before Ciri was asleep. Geralt had to badger her into stripping to her shift under the blankets; she’d catch cold if she slept in her wet clothes, and with the lack of sleep and the hard shock of losing everyone she’d ever loved so near behind her, he didn’t fancy her chances if she did.

It would suit destiny just right: to drag them together, after he’s spent so long trying to stay away, and then kill her in front of him.

“Geralt?” Jaskier whispers. “You’re glaring at me.”

Geralt scowls, redirecting his gaze back to the small campfire. He’d prefer not to light one at all, but Ciri’s dress won’t dry by itself. “I’m sorry about the lute. I had to get Ciri out, I couldn’t carry it.”

“Oh, ah, I see, you’ll apologize about the lute, but not for trampling my poor heart.”

“Don’t be dramatic. I didn’t do anything to your heart.”

“Okay, firstly, my job relies on being dramatic. Secondly, please do not fucking presume to tell me anything about my own heart.”

The sharpness in his tone makes Geralt glance over. Jaskier, too, is glaring at the fire. Perhaps they’ll keep it alight with nothing but their stifled rage.

They sit for some time. The silence grows long and Geralt expects Jaskier to turn away to his own bedroll but he doesn’t. Nor does he speak. That strangled feeling returns to Geralt’s chest. His fingers pluck at the strap of his boot, clutching for words that will not come. Always, Jaskier has spoken to him, for him, about him, but now he simply sits and does not look at Geralt.

At last the pain of silence outweighs the agony of speech. “Aren’t you going to ask about it?”

When Jaskier meets his gaze, his expression is...difficult to read. “I’m not sure I want to,” he says.

It’s fair. It’s what Geralt deserves. He’s been cruel, heartless. Exactly what people say about Witchers all the time. He tugs at the leather strap, adjusting and re-adjusting his boot. “You’ll need to...stay off the main roads. Someone might have seen you with us.”

“Oh, ohohoho, no, my friend, you’re not getting rid of me. I’m coming with you.”

“The fuck you are.”

“The fuck I’m not. I’ll follow you on foot if I have to, have you learned nothing of our two decades of...acquaintance?” He does not say friendship. Geralt deserves that, too. “Listen, Geralt, you know very well that I’m no knight or hero, but that little girl...I’ve seen her grow up. I saw her just after her mother and father died at sea, I saw her sitting under tables at banquets with her dolly and throwing tantrums when it was bedtime, what, why are you looking at me like that? What?”

Geralt realizes that he is staring and rips his gaze away. His hands are in fists. _He wants_.

“This is all your fucking fault,” he growls before he can stop himself.

Jaskier flails his arms. “Oh, what the fuck, pray tell, are you blaming me for now?”

“ _Everything!_ ” Geralt snarls, then checks himself as Ciri stirs. She rolls over with her back to the fire, which shines on her pale hair. Ashen, almost like his. Destiny truly mocks him. “I wouldn’t have her if it weren’t for you. You brought me to that banquet. I met Yennefer because of you and that fucking djinn. Every scrap of happiness I’ve ever had in my fucking life has been because of you, and I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it.”

“Oh, oh, I am so very sorry that I improved your life in any way, shape, or form, how rude of me! I should have left you brooding and penniless in the corner instead of devoting twenty years of my fucking life to following you around on the mistaken idea that we were even friends! How unspeakably uncouth I am, guiding you into the arms of your lady love and now providing you with an adorable moppet to ease your loneliness.”

“We were friends,” Geralt snaps. “We are friends.”

Jaskier’s mouth is a tight line. “I don’t think we are.”

Geralt closes his eyes. “We were.”

Jaskier says nothing. Silence lurks at the edges of the firelight like swamp gas, ready to choke and kill. Geralt says, “You can’t come with us. I can’t—bear it.”

Jaskier scoffs. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep the singing to a minimum.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“Then pray fucking illuminate me as to your actual meaning, Geralt, because I’m at a loss. What, can you grunt at me in code? Shall I slice my gut open and read my own entrails? Frankly I’d prefer that than hear you to tell me again how you wish for nothing else than my absence.”

Geralt can relate: he’d absolutely prefer a gut wound to this conversation. He says, “I found them because of you.”

“So we’ve established.”

“Gods, why are you not understanding me?”

Jaskier’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “ _What about any of this has seemed coherent to you_?”

“I wish,” Geralt says, “I wish you’d left me in the corner alone. I would never have felt anything for anyone. I would never have wondered what it’s like to hold a child of my own. If my path had crossed Yennefer’s, it likely would have ended with one of us dead. You did that, you fucking—tricked me into thinking that I could have these things. I am a Witcher. I should want nothing, feel nothing, and die alone. That's the life I had before you, but when I returned to it in your absence, I found it...empty.”

“Of course you fucking did. What kind of life is that?”

“None at all.”

“Then why would you want it?”

“I don’t. Do you not fucking hear me? Three trials there are to become a Witcher, meant to cut out our humanity, and you—you undid all of it. You made me feel human again. I want Ciri to be my daughter, I want to find Yennefer and make her believe I truly love her, and I want you to stay with me. I loved you, first, and you let me.”

Silence closes in. Geralt does not look up from his boot, but he can feel Jaskier staring at him. He draws breath once or twice as if to speak but lets it out again. 

“When you say love,” he finally says but trails off halfway.

“Hm.”

“Oh gods, you’ve reverted to grunting. Fine. Grunt once if you mean platonic love, twice if you mean familial—”

Geralt rolls his eyes. “I kissed you.”

“I know! I was there!”

“So do you kiss your family that way?”

Jaskier makes the same face he always does when someone mentions his family. “No.”

“Hm.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Jaskier exclaims, and gets up.

Geralt’s stomach sinks, but Jaskier isn’t striding away into the dark. He’s coming over to drop down onto his knees by Geralt’s side. It’s hard not to flinch away; he’s learned to associate physical closeness with pain.

He manages to hold still, though, even as Jaskier puts a hand on the side of his neck. “Geralt, look at me,” he whispers. When Geralt obeys, Jaskier ducks down that last wavering inch and kisses him. He doesn’t taste like beer anymore. Geralt lets go of his bootstrap and carefully curls his fingers over Jaskier’s ribs. They flex against his palms with every breath. The hand on his neck slides up through his hair to cup the back of Geralt’s head while they kiss. 

It begins that simply but as all things involved with Jaskier it quickly gets out of hand and becomes overwhelming, so much that Geralt must break away and press his head against Jaskier’s neck.

“Geralt,” Jaskier whispers. “Are you being shy?”

“Hmm. I can still throw you in the fire.”

“No you won’t.” Jaskier’s thumbs brush over his cheekbones and dig into the muscles under his jaw in a way that makes goosebumps race down Geralt’s back. “I’m your friend, after all.”

-o-

In the morning they head upriver towards the northern roads that will lead them to Kaer Morhen. Jaskier has tied the two broken lute strings into one and manages to pluck out a melody. He ambles behind Roach, who carries Ciri, and sings bright, cheery songs that counter the gray skies overhead and the gloom of the trees around them. Geralt would shush him were it not for the way that Ciri frequently turns in the saddle to smile at a particular turn of phrase or ask questions about the subject of a song.

On a particularly flat stretch of riverbank, Jaskier skips ahead then walks backwards to sing in Geralt’s face about the dangers of drink and what surprises await a man who has indulged too much.   
It’s probably the most child-appropriate song that Jaskier knows.

He finishes with a strumming flourish then darts in to kiss the corner of Geralt’s mouth. He is bright, bright eyes and bright smile—and crow’s feet around the eyes; but gods, gods, they have a while together yet. Geralt does his best not to trip over his own feet, while behind him, Ciri laughs with delight, curiosity, and joy.


	2. Outside Tretegor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know the verb tense has changed. This takes place after Rinde but well before the dragon hunt. 
> 
> Warnings for some non-con mind reading on Yennefer's part. It's not especially harmful but I figured I should err on the side of caution.

After Rinde, they did not see each other for almost a year. Geralt had woken up next to her in the half-broken house and felt...strange. Like he wanted to wake her with a kiss, stroke her hair back from her face again, watch her eyes flutter open and see him. He wanted to stay.

Years later he’ll wonder if the djinn did that; at the time, however, he’d blamed her for the unfamiliar urges. 

To be fair, she had already used her powers to warp his mind. The shitheads of Rinde might have deserved the mostly-harmless punishments that she’d unleashed on them, but she’d used his body to do so, pressing her will into him until it felt like his skull might pop. Only Jaskier’s life kept him from taking more offense; he had been on his way to kill her or at least demand satisfaction when the bard had tumbled out the front door of the half-ruined manor and immediately started rambling at him. For that, Geralt would have done far worse things, and maybe even would have agreed to her use of his body for that purpose if she’d asked. He’d already expected to have to fuck her—given the scene he’d walked into, he’d thought things were heading in that direction. When he’d woken up and felt strangely tender to her sleeping form, he’d drawn a straight line between the two and come to what he thought at the time was the most reasonable conclusion. 

She didn’t ask for things, that much was clear, and so once he was awake he had quickly gathered Roach, found Jaskier trudging back to the lake where they’d met, and left Rinde behind. 

-o-

Jaskier...Jaskier was a fucking nightmare. He talked and sang and picked fights with people twice his size and tumbled into and out of bed with half the people they encountered. Geralt really didn’t understand how he hadn’t expired from the clap or had his throat cut by an irate husband or wife. The entire mess in Cintra had only happened because of fucking Jaskier. He seemed determined to trick the rest of the world into liking Geralt, and vice versa, and that was dangerous: there was no place for Witchers in the world, and sooner or later someone was going to take exception to Geralt acting like he had a right to walk among them, like he was human and could expect to be treated like one. By all rights, Geralt should have driven Jaskier away long ago. 

He...didn’t. As much as the bard’s constantly-vibrating presence grated on Geralt’s nerves sometimes, he genuinely seemed to like Geralt. As a person, not because Geralt could do something for him. What novelty. 

And then.

And then, there she was. Standing next to the bar in the latest town—improbably named Cunny of the Goose—and looking right at him. He’d caught her on one of his habitual scans of the room, checking first with Jaskier, who was mid-song, then cycling through everyone near him to see if there were any irate husbands or wives in attendance tonight. It was wild how recklessly Jaskier chose his romantic companions--and they were romantic, he could not deny this. Jaskier had affection for each and every person that he took to his bed, no matter how briefly he had known them. When human emotions were strong enough to elicit a physical reaction, Geralt could scent them as surely as a hare in the brush; Jaskier’s love smelled like sweaty palms and warm musk. 

He couldn’t exactly judge. He’d known Yennefer for all of two conversations, three if you counted the shouted negotiation in the manor when he’d felt strangely obligated to save her life. 

And here she was again. The bard sang on, seemingly oblivious, as Geralt and Yennefer eyed each other across the tavern. At least she did not feign surprise. She’d clearly come here looking for him and after a few words to the barmaid she walked over and arranged herself on the bench across from him.

“Witcher,” she greeted.

“Witch,” he replied. As if he didn’t perfectly well know the difference between a sorceress of Aretruza and a local hedge witch. 

A scowl marred her lovely facade of friendliness. She was surprisingly emotional for a sorceress. From what little he knew of Aretruza and their teaching on the power of chaos, he knew they and the teachers of Kaer Morhen shared similar views on the subject of emotions. Namely, don’t.

Her features smoothed back into that of a beautiful, charming young woman. “I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a surprise but I just couldn’t help myself. You piqued my curiosity on the subject of witchers, I made it something of a study.”

“Have you.” Geralt couldn’t imagine that literally any of his brothers would respond well to the idea of a mage ‘studying’ them. 

“Hm. Your own personal history, of course, is of particular interest, not to mention the one best documented.” She cast a pointed gaze towards the fireplace, where Jaskier was leaning over a stout, delighted woman, winking and waggling his eyebrows. Ugh. That was the other mystery of Jaskier: how often his frankly awful flirting managed to work. 

“That’s because most people have no taste,” Yennefer said. “Among the unwashed inbreds of their local pond, he seems quite the...oh, really now.”

She pursed her lips at Geralt, who had recoiled and begun the silent meditative chant that Master Vydnick had taught them to ward their minds against telepaths. 

“What do you want,” Geralt asked. 

Yennefer sighed, rolling her eyes. “To not spend the rest of my life among the unwashed inbreds wallowing about in their local pond. I’ve spent far too long in exile. It’s time to reclaim my place among the mages of Aretruza, but if I’m to do so, I need to understand something of the court politics currently unfolding. Now, I’m given to understand that you were involved in some kind of minor affair in Cintra several years ago--that you and the idiot attended the betrothal feast of Princess Pavetta, daughter of the Lioness. It’s common knowledge that something strange happened at the betrothal, but not what.”

Emotion, Master Vydnick had taught them, made them vulnerable and far easier to manipulate. That had been his undoing before: he’d allowed himself to feel upset about Jaskier, guilty for his part in almost killing the bard. She had used that, exploited it exactly as he’d been warned to expect. He would not make the same mistake this time. 

The tension returned to her mouth. A mug appeared in her hand just as she reached for it. The barmaid appeared fully insensible to anything else as she moved away from their table. Yennefer drank and made a face. Even from here, the wine smelled like vinegar. “Look, I’m not asking for much. If you’ve been sworn to secrecy, I promise to find some way of convincing everyone that I found out the information without your involvement. All I know is, something happened in Cintra and no one, not the Rectoress of Aretruza nor the Brotherhood, know precisely what. A good number of the lords and ladies who attended that betrothal party have died under mysterious circumstances, and the rest have either gone into hiding or won’t speak about that night at all. If I showed up with a firsthand account of the grand mystery, then I’d be welcomed back with open arms and then you’d never have to see me ever again in your life. Oh please, won’t you help me?”

She smiled at him, simpering a little with thinly-concealed distaste. Even the appearance of weakness was beyond her ability to project. She was power incarnate, buzzing against his senses like a fire sitting too close to his skin and threatening to burn at any moment. He hated it, hated her, the illusions within deceptions within lies that she traded in, and yet he did not drive her away any more than the bard--and there was some kind of treacherous comparison between them waiting in his own mind, waiting for him to discover at the worst moment. 

The worst moment being this, faced with a mage of Aretruza who fully intended to plum him for her own means. Yielding would be a betrayal he could not live with, but how could he evade her for much longer? He couldn’t even fucking focus enough in this room with Jaskier singing and the voices of townsfolk and the clank of mugs and the lute and the dog growling underneath the bar and the shush of tree branches moving outside and the stamp of boots overhead and the false moan of prostitutes and the real moan of johns and the snore of those that were neither and the creak of wood and the--

“Ugh,” Yennefer said and waved a hand in the air. Instantly, the cacophony of noise around them dropped away. “There. Now, will you please answer me?”

The silence was so sudden and complete that Geralt swayed in place. Even the lights had dimmed slightly, as if a thin veil had fallen around them and wrapped them in a cocoon. 

He could breathe again. His shoulders ached as they relaxed. Yennefer was watching, her head tilted to one side. 

She did that for me, Geralt thought. She’d known, without words, because that was what mages could do—read your mind and know your deepest desires, a fact that should have him running for the door but instead. Instead.

o-o

Yennefer stared at him, unprepared for the gush of emotions in his momentarily-unguarded mind. Relief, gratitude, and a shivery realization of something shapeless that he very clearly did not understand himself. 

His golden eyes flickered around the room, tracking the movements of townsfolk and checking on the bard, but periodically they returned to her. He was not afraid of her, precisely, but wary about her motives. She’d tricked him before. She could do it again if he were not careful. 

His defenses rose and the battle renewed.

She went to work, nudging along the edges but was quickly repelled. He hid the struggle well, quaffing his ale with a face made of stone, but his mind betrayed him. He wanted her. He knew better than to want. Wanting things, people, made you weak and weakness got you killed. 

All of this passed through his mind in a flash that collapsed underneath the weight of his mental barriers, an entire fortress portcullis that, while nothing near as impressive as those she had learned to build at Aretruza, still managed to squeeze her out of his mind with its descent.

No sooner had it shut, however, than one tiny corner peeled back, whispering, Unless…?

The faintest, wavering hesitation, so delicate that she couldn’t quite bring herself to immediately press her advantage. Instead she feigned boredom and sipped wine. “Shall I take that as a no?”

The loose thread unraveled a bit in her hands without her even trying. He’d forgotten the question and the idea of asking her to repeat it felt strangely...painful to him. Talking usually felt painful. Something to do with his horse—oh, Meletile, he practiced talking to his horse. Whenever he got close to a settlement he would pretend his horse was the alderman and run through the anticipated conversation. How much coin? That isn’t enough. Well, then, go and find a mercenary willing to go after a drowner nest, but pay them in advance so that I can get the purse off their corpse later.

She couldn’t help snorting into her glass. He flinched mentally, pushing her out, and she felt a silly impulse to reassure--she was laughing with him, not at him. Such niceties were beneath her, however, and she let his flinch curdle into shame. She knew firsthand that the more vulnerable emotions were easier to exploit, and she readied her blades; she would leave him mostly intact, out of courtesy. He’d been a fairly considerate fuck in Rinde, notwithstanding his abrupt departure.

Except he did not wallow in his embarrassment the way she expected, trapped in a whirl of his worst moments. Instead he went in the offensive: he met her eye and shoved it all at her, not unlike a roadside peddler dumping their goods out of fish-scented barrels at her feet—but the peddler still at least clung to the notion that his goods had any value. The Witcher, on the other hand, knew better and draped his scorn around him like a cowl. His smirk asked, Are you satisfied now? Look upon the field where I grow my hope, pride, and self-worth, and see that it is barren.

You cannot take anything from a man who wants nothing, who believes that he deserves nothing, and oh has he tried. 

But here, too, he betrayed himself, for someone else had walked in the field and now it was full of weeds. And buried underneath: that shivery excitement. 

A frown grew between his brows as he realized his mistake. She pressed and he resisted, his hand tightening on his tankard—and then, suddenly, like the flash of an invisible knife, she felt him turn on himself. He was trying to kill something in himself rather than face its existence, and Yennefer reacted thoughtlessly, flailing out a hand. “No, don’t!”

They both froze, staring at one another. A few heads turned in their direction, but she quickly batted them away, erasing her shout and the sight of her hand gripping Geralt’s wrist from the memories of those around them. 

It took her longer to let go of Geralt. His fingertips brushed her own wrist as she drew back, though she did not know whether by accident or by design on his part. In Rinde he’d commented on the scars in passing as light as the touch of his fingertips and not for the first time she wondered why she’d chosen to keep them. 

Now it was her turn to avoid his eyes. Nothing in her studies had indicated that witchers possessed any telepathic abilities, but they certainly made up for it in other ways--smell, hearing, and some mysterious awareness of magic that had been noted by researchers but not fully explained. Likely he knew full well that her distress on his behalf had been genuine, and she had no idea how to turn it to her advantage when it had taken her by surprise, too.

“That’s not really why you’re here,” Geralt said, and she didn’t need to brush against his mind to hear the hope in his voice.

Hope that she quickly and firmly dashed by pushing back from the table and standing up. 

The minstrel’s voice wobbled as he caught sight of her crossing the tavern floor, but she quickly plucked the memory from his mind and even did him the courtesy of knocking a mug off the bar onto the floor to distract the audience from his momentary distress. 

She felt the witcher’s gaze on her back and surely as if he rested a hand there. He wanted to: he was thinking about how her hair would feel between his fingers and trying to remember how it’d felt in Rinde.

Shaking her mind free of his with an effort, she climbed the stairs to the second floor. The tavern kept four rooms for travelers. Likely Geralt and his pet had claimed one for the night, but she was not interested in pawing through their belongings for a clue. 

The second door on the right was firmly shut, but a small white cloth had been caught in the doorjamb. Yennefer tread lightly down the hall and knocked.

It swung open immediately. “If you try to stab me, I’ll melt your legs together and throw you in the ocean,” Yennefer commented as she stepped inside. “You can be a new breed of mermaid.”

The round-faced person waiting behind the door with a knife scowled at her and shut the door without a sound. “He is not with you?”

“No.” Yennefer did not know for certain who held this unpleasant little toad’s reins: they had the dark hair and olive skin of a Nilfgaardian, but every so often Cintran vowels would slip into their accent. Why either Nilfgaard or Cintra would want to kill a single witcher was beyond her, and attempts to read the spy’s mind had met a flat, blank wall thus far. 

Downstairs, Geralt was still...there. Mind still carefully, deliberately unguarded to her. Instinct told her to lash out--how dare he make it so easy to hurt him? What game did he seek to play? Did he even know what she could do?

The answer, of course, was yes. He knew. One didn’t walk around with their mind closed up tight from lack of experience with mage tricks. 

He was hoping that she would come back downstairs. Failing that, he hoped that she could at least hear this and know what he wanted--this, she saw in a flurry of images that made her cunt tingle. He was aroused, too, shifting in his seat and thinking about her riding him in Rinde. A flash or two of the bard, quickly suppressed, but not quick enough that she didn’t notice. Well, that answered that question, though not why he hadn’t acted on his desire. The bard certainly wouldn’t raise any objections--she’d interacted with him for all of thirty seconds, twenty of those while he was unconscious, and she knew that all Geralt had to do was snap his fingers and the bard would be gagging on his cock.

“You assured me that you would bring him to me,” the spy hissed, regaining her attention. Well, part of her attention. 

“I did. He’s going to follow me upstairs in a moment.” Yennefer crossed to the mantle and poured herself a glass of wine, quickly magicking away the poison that her little toad friend had put inside while she was downstairs. Turning, she took a deliberate sip as she considered them. “I just haven’t decided whether you’re still going to be here when he does.”

To their credit, their expression did not flicker as she drank what they surely assumed was a fatal dose of...hm, was that verbana? She’d left just enough of a trace to smell. “Cross me and you’ll regret it, witch,” the toad warned her. “I have powerful friends.”

“You know, I actually believe that. You’re far too unpleasant to have survived this long in life without allies.” Yennefer took another, deep drink, really committing to the performance. “My question is, who? The betrothal of Princess Pavetta to a lowly knight was strange enough by itself, but someone seems quite determined to hide something else that happened at that feast. Obviously, the Queen gutted most of them--no one else could get away with offing that many, hm, lords, much less their families. But either your powerful friends, hm, are well-hidden at the moment or you’re here alone, and Calanthe doesn’t seem the type, hm, to leave things to chance.”

She broke off into feigned coughing. At last the toad could not restrain themselves and smirked. “I told you not to cross me, witch.”

Verbana’s effects on the body begin in the throat but quickly spread to the entire respiratory tract. Yennefer fumbled with the glass, setting it back down on the mantle. If she dropped it, Geralt might hear; he was listening, downstairs, and knew what room she’d walked into. Putting both hands against her own throat, she wheezed and made her eyes bulge and darken, capillaries bursting as if she struggled with breath. 

The toad had more to say but nothing of interest. Yennefer slumped sideways, casting a swift and discreet silencing charm on the floor so that it made no sound as she appeared to topple sideways. If the toad had been paying more attention they might have thought it odd, but they were too busy gloating. Yennefer wheezed and went limp. 

“Fool,” the toad muttered proudly, and dropped their mental barriers. 

Yennefer pushed back onto her knees and dusted her hands together, shedding the glamor. “Wretched little creature, aren’t you?” she said to the spy, who had gone slack and staring. They’d enjoyed her death a little too much for her liking and she was none too gentle rooting about in their mind. 

They didn’t actually know why their master wanted the witcher dead. But they did know their master was the lowly knight who had wed Princess Pavetta at the feast so cloaked in mystery, and that lowly knight was--

Yennefer paused in the act of drinking some more wine. Holy shit.

The knight wasn’t a knight, he was fucking Emhyr var Emries, rightful heir to the Nilfgaard throne, who had fled into the Northern Realms to escape death at the hands of the usurper who had killed his father. Holy shit. No wonder there was a trail of dead lords and pages who hadn’t kept their mouths closed. Giving aid to Emhyr var Emries alone would be tantamount to a declaration of war with Nilfgaard, let alone marrying him to the Cintran princess.

Oh, that was good. Yennefer patted her toad friend on the cheek--they did not react--then swept out the door feeling downright cheerful in her certainty that this particular secret would buy her whatever price she named among anyone even halfway familiar with Continental politics.

(It did, and made her fabulously wealthy. It also led to the assassination of Princess Pavetta as she and her husband--whom the princess knew only as Ser Duny--traveled to Skellige. Emhyr survived the attempt but was barred from ever seeing his daughter again by the heartbroken Calanthe, who would never forgive him for both lying to her daughter and causing her death. This in turn led to the Nilfgaardian war as Emhyr--who had by now regained his throne--drove north to claim his daughter and heir.

Destiny will have her way.)

In the hallway, Yennefer paused. She did not need a witcher’s sense of smell to detect which room was Geralt’s: while he had little magic of his own, a good number of things that he carried with him had come into contact with magical places and creatures, which had left a certain...residue.

Yennefer tread heavily back down the hall to their room and flicked open the lock. Hm, one bed. Had she been wrong about her estimations of Geralt’s relationship to the bard…? No, certainly not. She felt a pang of unwilling sympathy for the poor bard, lying there next to his object of lust all night when he could be gagging on cock instead. No wonder he flirted with everyone, his balls would likely explode if he didn’t.

Downstairs, Geralt got up from his table.

And oh, he was back on the offensive now. Yennefer’s finger fumbled in the act of untying her cloak as she caught sight of his mental image: him kneeling with both her legs thrown over his shoulders and his head between her thighs. So far as sexual fantasies went it was laughably tame, but he wanted it with a real, honest power, not as a grudging concession to her pleasure but as something he would enjoy. He could do it; he hadn’t, before, but he felt absolutely confident in his ability to hold her up that way and make her come with nothing but his mouth until one of them passed out. 

“Hng,” Yennefer said, shoving a hand down to press at her pubic mound through the dress. She’d never been so blindingly turned on so fast before in her life. A flurry of other images followed the first, all equally compelling in their sincerity and fervor. There was no artifice to this, just the simple animal want in him. The part of her mind not currently preoccupied with trying to undress wondered how on earth he was walking with such an erection. 

He had climbed the stairs. She could hear him in the hall, and he paused here. Why did he pause there? She was halfway out of her top, just her skirts left on. Why the fuck had he paused? Oh for fuck’s sake, he was sniffing her, scenting like an animal in search of prey.

She sent a lance of impatience, nothing more hurtful than a heel turned into the side of a horse. It worked just as well, spurring him to open the door. Except then he stopped there, too, his eyes taking in her exposed breasts, her--everything.

“You fucking arse,” she snapped, and set to gathering her skirts. He strode across the narrow room and scooped her up by the waist, pinning her to the wall

She grabbed him by the hair. It was long, tumbling over his shoulders and unexpectedly soft against her fingers; it had the look of an old man’s hair, but not the same brittleness. He bit her neck, his arousal surging as his teeth set into soft flesh. Her hands fumbled between them, yanking at the ties of his pants. He was strong, holding her up with one arm easily as he shoved his fingers first into his mouth and then into her, growling with animal satisfaction to find her slick with waiting for him. Yennefer snarled back at him, climbing higher on his body then sinking down on his cock.

A shock raced up her spine and made her face tingle. The sting of it made her hesitate, legs tightening to hold herself up and away from him; he was big. He shuddered, fist thumping against the wall next to her head; but he didn’t force himself any deeper, didn’t make her take him and oh, oh, he was sorry. Experience with prostitutes--and there dwelt a vast, echoing cavern, full of desperate need and awkward hesitation--had taught him to go slow. Behind his teeth was an apology, even as his hips made little jerking motions beyond his control. 

She didn’t let him give voice to that apology but eased herself back down bit by bit, meeting his helpless movements until they made a rhythm together. 

She didn’t bother staying in his head. Men rarely managed to stay coherent through the act, and the ones that did likely had such mental barriers in place as to render the attempt pointless anyway. Genuinely, she didn’t know if she even could: she was too preoccupied with his body, especially when he pulled out and actually sank down onto his knees to fulfill that particular fantasy. When he did that she very nearly lost her grip on the spy down the hall, which would have ended badly for them all, so after a few very pleasant minutes of coming on his face, she grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him over to the bed. 

This time she pulled him down on top of her, and he obliged, sinking back in. This time was better, she was so stupidly aroused that the size of him felt good but it gave her just enough mental space to keep control of the situation. Geralt had absolutely lost track of the situation, but that was fine. He did maintain a strict awareness of his own body, and hers, and even noticed that his hand was braced on her hair before she had to say something. Anything beyond that was lost in the haze of lust, which built and built until Yennefer had to detach one hand from where she was digging her nails into the back of his shoulder and gesture a quick silencing charm around the whole room.

It broke, finally, in stuttering hips and choked breaths that he heaved against her sternum. They tumbled to their sides, still tightly clenched together; Yennefer had her legs wrapped around his hips, ankles hooked, and if this were a fight she’d have him dead to rights. Well, if she were twice her size. Fortunately she didn’t have to rely on physical strength. She had him for that. 

Recalling the way he’d gone straight to sleep after their encounter in Rinde, she gave him a mental poke. Less of an elbow to the ribs this time and more of a knuckle.

“Stop,” he mumbled against the side of her face. 

He didn’t actually want her to stop, though. She dug her fingertips into his scalp, imagining that her fingers could go further, right down into his brain. He shuddered against her, his hips grinding in a way that made them both moan. He wanted to fuck her again. He knew he shouldn’t, this wouldn’t end well, he should leave--

She tightened her legs, digging her actual heel into his back this time. “More,” she commanded, and he grabbed her hips with both hands, hiking her legs up as they resumed. 

Down the hall, the spy forgot why they had come to this inn, as well as the names Geralt of Rivia and Yennefer of Vengerberg, and peaceably wandered out into the night to get eaten by a pack of necrophages. The bard, oblivious to it all, kept singing. 


End file.
